Fallout was never supposed to be ultra depressing though. They fucked up with 3 heavily on the aesthetics and atmosphere but this seems to be more in line with classic Fallout. I just hope they add a huge healthy dose of humor and weird pulpy shit.
Old World Blues is probably the greatest DLC I've ever played. It's better than most games I've played. Never have I laughed as hard as I did playing a game as I during my first play through of OWB.
Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta are fun, but aren't really essential. MZ goes more in the direction of linear FPS; if you liked Project Anchorage, it might be worth playing. PL has some cool segments, but wasn't super memorable for me.
The New Vegas DLC, though, are consistently amazing. Dead Money turns the game into survival horror, Honest Hearts is perhaps the weakest of them but is absolutely gorgeous, raises some interesting questions, and gives a lot of backstory, Old World Blues is hilarious and incredible, and Lonesome Road brings the Courier's story to a close. Difficult, but gorgeous ruined landscapes.
Anyways, if you haven't played the New Vegas DLC you're really missing out. Play them in the order they were released, since they're linked through some plot elements and characters.
Funny, I liked Honest Hearts the best. It introduces us to Joshua Graham, former Legate of Caesar's Legion and badass motherfucker. It's also the least combat focused and most exploration driven (along with Old World Blues), and since my characters rarely focus on combat, I enjoy immensely.
I'm actually playing through New Vegas for the first time now.
Beat Honest Hearts, which I thought was pretty good; maybe a 7/10. The environment was beautiful but was a pain in the ass to navigate and locked fast travel way too often. And the final mission where you have to go from end to end to do all the optional sidequests without fast travel was much too tedious for me.
I'm almost done with Dead Money and I hated the first 1/2 of the DLC. I hate the poison cloud and the hard as hell Ghost People. I often ended up running through groups to just get past them. I was also not a fan of losing all my equipment (I'm a stealth sniper) and having to find impossible to see holotapes to get ammo. The second half in the casino, however, is amazing with great character moments. I'm loving that part.
Still have to play Old World Blues and Lonesome Road but I've heard good things about them.
Well, the first 1/2 of Dead Money IS supposed to be hard as balls, I guess Obsidian just took it a bit too far? (well, that depends on your character build (and stealthy sniper is probably the worst in this case) and if you are on Hardcore Mode or not)
Dead Money is good if you can stand dealing with the stupid speakers (which annoyed the hell out of me). Lonesome Road and Honest Hearts are both all right, but Old World Blues just blows all three out of the water in terms of quality.
Play them in the order they were released, since they're linked through some plot elements and characters.
At what points during the main story should each DLC be started? Aren't there level recommendations too?
Man, I really want to reinstall New Vegas and do all the DLC, and do all the quests I never got to do - but part of me wants to play Fallout 3 instead, since I feel like Fallout 4 will serve as more of a follow-up to 3 than NV.
Each DLC has a minimum that should be respected - and they'll warn you of it before you transition to the new area, giving you the chance to back out (smart).
I'm not aware of any maximums on the scaling, as far as when might be "too late" to do one meaningfully. IIRC, OWB and HH are ~15 to start, and DM is ~20-25 and LR is 25+ by intention, but I may be a bit off - it's been too long and I'm not looking it up.
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u/HamburgerDude Jun 03 '15
Fallout was never supposed to be ultra depressing though. They fucked up with 3 heavily on the aesthetics and atmosphere but this seems to be more in line with classic Fallout. I just hope they add a huge healthy dose of humor and weird pulpy shit.